


Missed Ya

by raritannaiad



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Love Confessions, Post-Update Fic, i have 5 exams this week but i really wanted to express my upd8 love, spacetime is life, these are short chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-08
Packaged: 2018-05-31 01:15:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6449611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raritannaiad/pseuds/raritannaiad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jade is thrown back into Dave's life, and he realizes that three years was nowhere near enough time to prepare himself for her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Grimbark

Dave had pictured a slightly different reunion during his three years on the meteor. But then again, he probably should have seen it coming. Jade never did things that were predictable or normal.

She appeared in the sky out of fucking nowhere, hair swirling around her face like she was underwater, skin as grey as Karkat’s, green sparks of magic exploding from her fingertips. He went from feeling surprised to scared beyond belief in a half-second once he registered what was wrong with her. Not fear for himself, because he didn’t really believe even an insane Jade would hurt him— but terror that whatever had happened to her was permanent. That he would never see her dorky, too-big smile again.

Vriska stepped forward with her hand out towards Jade, brow furrowed in concentration. The wave of relief he felt as he watched the greyness dissipate from her skin in wisps of smoke was overwhelming. The sparks of magic died down and the rage melted from her face, leaving her looking small, confused, and worried.

“Guys?” Jade asked, her voice trembling slightly. “I don’t…”

She stopped talking abruptly. Her eyes fluttered closed and she fell from where she had been hovering two feet above the ground, hitting the cement hard, suddenly asleep.

Dave broke away from the group and ran to her, collapsing to his knees at her side. He could feel Rose come up behind him, hovering over the both of them protectively. There was blood welling up from scrapes on Jade’s forearms, and on her leg where her tights were torn. Her hair was a disheveled mess haloed around her face. He looked up at Vriska, balling his fists up in anger.

“She’s fucking bleeding,” he snapped at her. “You didn’t need to do that.”

Vriska laughed and rolled her eyes. “Instead of what, letting her attack us? Fat chance.”

“You stopped the grimdarkness. It’s just like how Rose was. She went back to normal! Wake her up.”

“I can’t,” Vriska said. “It’s not like how Rose was. Jade’s not controlling this.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Dave growled at her.

She frowned at him. “I can feel her mind. She’s being mind-controlled… I think by the Condesce.” 

His entire body felt cold. “She wouldn’t fight for the Condesce.”

“I doubt that it’s her choice, Dave,” Rose said quietly from behind him.

Vriska sighed impatiently. “Regardless, I can’t wake her up. She’ll just go crazy again! I can wake her up after the battle, when we’ve kill the sea-witch. Or if she wakes up on her own way later, maybe it won’t matter because the Condesce will have stopped focusing on trying to control her. Either way, she’s staying asleep for now.” She turned back to the rest of the group. “We’ve wasted enough time on this. We’re going to go by the platform in just a few minutes!! We have to go now.” She grabbed the mayor and went to Terezi, who was strapping on her rocket pack.

Kanaya stepped forward to take Rose’s hand. “Take Jade,” Rose said to him. “We’ll meet you and the rest of them at the victory platform. KARKAT, GET OVER HERE!” 

Dave leaned forward and lifted Jade into his arms. She was all limbs, so much more lanky than he remembered her being. He jumped off the roof to float in the air, the meteor moving forward without him. He followed Terezi’s trail of rocket-pack smoke into the distance.


	2. Waiting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Waiting for a battle to start is easier when you're distracted by a girl.

She was smiling in her sleep.

Dave wondered what dream bubble memory she was in, who she was talking to. Probably not him. In the whole three years on the meteor, he never once saw John or Jade in his sleep. Rose had said once that the universe probably made a point of separating you from who your subconscious wanted to see the most; that even though there were plenty of doomed, dead Johns and Jades floating around in the afterlife, they’d probably never see them. Just one more way to be fucked over. Instead, he got to talk to weird punky fish aliens he really didn’t give a fuck about meeting.

He didn’t want to leave her here during the battle. It already felt wrong. He had never pictured fighting this without all of his friends with him— and she was going to be so upset about missing the action when she woke up. Assuming they didn’t all die, anyway.

Jade sighed quietly and rolled over on the cold stone of the victory platform. Her hair— longer than ever, had she cut it even once on the ship?— covered her face like a veil. He reached out, brushed the locks off her cheeks, and tucked it behind her ears. Her dog ears twitched and he froze, fingertips hovering over her; but she just mumbled something in her sleep too quiet and illegible to be heard and went back to being still.

“Are you petting Jade? That’s weird even for you, dude. She isn’t actually a dog.”

Dave whipped his hand back and looked up at Karkat, who was staring down at the scene with an eyebrow raised. 

“No. Obviously. Why, are you jealous? Because if you wanted me to scratch behind your horns bro, you just needed to ask,” he replied, praying his face wasn’t red.

Karkat grimaced at him and flopped down on Dave’s other side. “I almost didn’t recognize her,” he said, glancing at Jade.

He understood what Karkat was getting at— she looked way older. He knew he and Rose and all the trolls did, too, but he never noticed it because he saw them every day. He She still looked like the gangly Jade he remembered, but… just older. Unfairly cute. He tried desperately not to notice the amazing way her waist dipped in and then curved out wide to her hips, which he was positive hadn’t been a thing when they had been on LOFAF together. And the fluffy white dog ears were possibly going to be his downfall.

“I’m just glad I’m actually taller than her now. That shit was embarrassing. She had to get a frog out of a tree for me because I couldn’t reach it, and I swear I was just willing Jack to get there and kill me faster,” he said.

“Are you sure that was the only reason you wanted to die? Maybe it was also the only way you could get her to kiss your ugly face,” Karkat said, smirking. 

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dave replied coolly, staring up at the clouds swirling around Skaia.


	3. Note

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How do you sum up three years of thoughts in one short note?

Dave stood alone at the edge of a forest, Jade in his arms, and watched Karkat and Kanaya run off away from the house towards Echidna’s lair. Without Karkat’s constant grumbling or Jade’s laughter, her planet was too quiet. Three years ago, she had filled the forest with her energy. Now there were only ghosts and memories left to keep him company.

He turned and pushed open the front door to her house with his shoulder, carrying her over the threshold. Jade’s house looked like no one had ever lived in it. There wasn’t a single thing in her living room but dust and the fireplace. The whole room was dark, cold, and generally about as appealing as a tomb-- but, at least, it was a safer place for her to sleep than a little platform floating in space.

Dave walked across the floor to the fireplace and knelt down, laying her on the hearth. He swallowed back the lump rising in his throat. She looked too innocent. Too vulnerable. She’d kick his ass if she ever heard him say that, and he’d deserve it. Jade was powerful and scary as hell when she wanted to be without any help. He had wanted to leave a gun with her, but Rose and Vriska shot it down— they didn’t want her having any extra weapons in case she woke up and the Condesce got to her again. He hoped she’d be quick with her space powers if someone dropped by to kill her. 

He pulled a slip of paper and a red marker from his sylladex. “Don’t be mad at us if you wake up, okay?” he said to her, uncapping the pen and writing what Rose had told him to. “That Callie girl and the Mayor are gonna be here to keep you company. The Mayor is the fucking bomb, trust me. Y’all are gonna be partying it up in here. Did you leave any cans laying around your house? If you wake up surrounded by cans, just go with it.”

Dave dropped the note next to her hand and stared at it. It didn’t feel like enough. If she did wake up and was mind-controlled, maybe she could break out of it if she remembered why she wanted to hard enough. He thought about one of the first photos she had ever sent him of herself— too-big grin, sparkling eyes, rainbow-striped fingers waving at him. Her reminders.

He nicked the edge of his cape with his sword and tore a thin strip of cloth off. “Everything’s going to be fine,” he said, tying the strip to the note, wondering if he was saying it more for her subconscious benefit or his. “If you’re running around some dream bubble right now freaking out because you’re asleep, don’t worry, seriously. We’ll all be okay.” He leaned forward and tied the other end of the strip to her pointer finger, and stood up to walk away. “Alright then. See ya.”

He turned and only made it halfway to the door before he spun around and went back to Jade’s side, dropping down to his knees again and reaching for the note to scribble one last message on the back of it. He tucked it back under her hand. “Just kidding. One last thing. Haven’t seen you in three years. This would have been the shittiest ‘hey, welcome back,’ note ever. I’ve got a friendship reputation on the line here.”

He couldn’t leave Dirk waiting any longer. Dave leaned down and kissed her forehead lightly.

“See you soon, Harley,” he said. He ran out the door before he could stop himself from leaving her at all.


	4. Kissing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jade was always upfront and straightforward with everything in a way that Dave had never been able to copy.

Dave was halfway through some warm-up strifing with Dirk when he heard excited barks like someone decided to let a dog who had just been handed a lifetime supply of Snausages loose somewhere on the poison murder planet. He let his sword drop to his side and buried his face in his other hand. “Did someone just bark? Please tell me I imagined hearing that.”

Dirk paused mid-step and looked up at the clouds, his eyebrows raised over his shades. “That’s not what Dog Jack sounds like, right? I don’t think I can take fighting a golden retriever puppy seriously.”

Dave turned towards Terezi, who looked as bewildered as Dirk. “Terezi, was that you?”

“What? No, I didn’t bark. I happen to be taking this upcoming battle very seriously, Dave!” She sniffed the air more emphatically than she already had been. “Also, I thought it was you.”

“Why the fuck would I bark?” Dave asked her. Dirk opened his mouth to comment on his question and Dave threw up his hand in a stop motion before he could talk. “Don’t actually answer that,” he said.

Terezi looked affronted, and a little amused by the whole thing. “Well, why the fuck would I bark??”

Dave groaned and captchalogued his sword, resigning himself to the inevitable. “Okay, enough shit. This exchange is asinine, it was probably just Jade.” He walked to the very edge of the roof, staring up into the clouds, Dirk and Terezi following behind him. 

There was a crack like a burst of thunder and the sudden smell of gunpowder. The sky lit up with green lightning and Jade materialized out of nothing fifteen feet above them, her hair flickering with bits of residue magic. She clapped her hands together in front of her and grinned when she saw him, her eyes lighting up, looking exuberant and incredibly pleased with herself.

“Hey guys!!” she called out joyfully.

Terezi looked at him, frowning. “She’s awake. Isn’t she supposed to be asleep?”

“Uh,” Dave said, at a loss as to what to do. “Yeah. Fuck.”

Jade laughed, her dog ears twitching. “Hi Dave!” She waved at him. “I got your note! I missed you too!!”

 _Jesus Christ._ Dirk and Terezi were staring at him. He could feel his face burning under his shades. Terezi was cackling under her breath. “Jade,” he sputtered, “God dammit. GO BACK TO SLEEP!”

She stuck her tongue out at him, scowling in a way that was ridiculously adorable. “No way!!”

“You can’t be here when we start fighting! Turn fucking tail and go back to LOFAF.”

“Don’t make puns, cool kid! And I _don’t_ have a tail!” Jade looked like she was fighting to look annoyed at him, but she failed miserably and went back to beaming at them cheekily. “Look, it’s too late! I can’t possibly fall asleep now of all times. Looks like you gave me a little assignment in case I woke up!” She held up the hand he had tied the bit of red cloth to. “Well, as it turns out… I am very much awake! And I intend to stay that way.”

Dave looked skyward and shook his head in defeat, at a complete inability to feel exasperated towards her when she looked so fucking eager and happy. Jade tucked her hair securely back into her hood and held her hands out in front of her, green space magic sparking from her fingertips and palms.

“See you guys! Apparently I’ve got a couple of dogs to deal with,” she chirped. She started to spin in midair, throwing her hands out to her sides as electricity surrounded her, but stopped at the last second, looking mischievous.

“Oh yeah! By the way, Dave…”

She paused, and Dave held his breath.

“You’re a pretty good kisser!” Jade called out to him. “Even when you’ve got cat lips!” She winked at him.

He had no idea what he expected, but it wasn’t that. His face felt so hot he was pretty sure an entire Girl Scout troop could roast marshmallows over him. Terezi was cackling again.

“WHAT?!” he yelled back at her, but she was already surrounded by her magic again.

“See ya!!” Jade said, giggling, and vanished in another crack of thunder and lightening.

Dave stood frozen like an idiot, trying to remember any instance of a timeline where he had kissed her, and wondered what asshole version of himself got to kiss her before his alpha self had. 

“Bye, idiot!” Terezi shouted into the empty sky. “Whatever. Let’s hope today, of all days, is not the day she fucks everything up.” She walked away, grumbling to herself under her breath.

Dirk turned to look at him.

“I’m assuming that’s the girl you were telling me about,” he said dryly.

“Yeah,” Dave replied. “That’s her.”

“She’s something else,” Dirk said, taking his sword back out from his sylladex. “Cute, though.”

Dave stared out at the spot where she had vanished, biting back a smile. “Yeah, she is.” _If we survive this and I ever see her again, I’ll tell her,_ he promised the universe, and got ready to strife with Dirk again.


End file.
